Our Curriculum
At Montessori Academy, we believe in providing a well-rounded education to our students. Our curriculum is designed to meet the developmental needs of preschool children from 24 months (2 years) through kindergarten level, and includes a wide range of subjects such as literacy, science, writing, geography, mathematics and physical education. Our approach to education is student-centered and hands-on, which means that our students are actively engaged in the learning process and are encouraged to explore and experiment.
Subjects Taught
The Montessori concept allows children to experience the joy of learning. Intellectual, creative, physical, and social growth successfully develop. Each child works and learns at his own pace, and according to his own capacities. Children of different ages work together in the same classroom, which stimulates both academic and social growth.
Practical Life Exercises
The purpose of the Practical Life Exercises is to teach respect for one’s self, other living things and the environment. In addition, the activities develop skills necessary to do work in all areas of the curriculum.
For a young child there is something special about tasks which an adult considers ordinary –washing dishes, paring vegetables, polishing shoes, etc. These tasks are exciting to a child because they allow him to imitate an adult. Imitation is one of the strongest urges during the child’s early years.
Practical Life Exercises are composed of many parts done in a specific sequence. These exercises are designed to perfect the child’s eye-hand coordination, gradually lengthen his attention span, and allow him to gain a sense of independence as he works. It requires concentration, memory and many other skills to complete the activates, as well as to repeat the exercises in the same manner each time. The lessons also teach independence as the child chooses a task and completes it. Finally, the child satisfies his sense of order by cleaning up and putting the activity neatly away before beginning another activity.
Sensorial Exercises
A young child meets the world around him through the constant use of all his five senses. The Sensorial materials allow the child to use this five senses to explore new information in a way that makes it easy and natural for him to learn.
Each of the sensorial materials isolates one of the senses into a category such as color, weight, size, shape, texture, sound, smell, etc. The materials emphasize a particular quality while eliminating or minimizing the others. This allows the young child to concentrate on one sense at a time without having so much sensory input that he cannot respond to any of it.
The sensorial materials organize the child’s world in a manner that gives the child the optimum capability for response and understanding. The sensorial impressions are not enough by themselves. The mind needs education and training to be able to discriminate and appreciate. The sensorial materials in the Montessori classroom help the child to distinguish, to categorize, and to relate new information to what he already knows. Dr.Montessori believed that this process is the beginning of conscious knowledge . it is brought about by intelligence working in a concentrated way on the impression given by the sense.
Mathematics
Dr. Montessori demonstrated that if a child has access to mathematical equipment in his early years, he can easily and joyfully assimilate many facts and skills of arithmetic. On the other hand, these same facts and skills may require long hours of drudgery and drill if they are introduced to him later in the abstract from. After observing that a child who becomes interested in counting likes to touch or move the items as he enumerates them, Dr. Montessori designed concrete materials to represent all types of quantities. By combining this equipment, separating it, sharing it, counting it, and comparing it, he can demonstrate to himself the basic operation of mathematics.
The child in a Montessori class does not sit down to memorize addition and subtraction facts. rather, he learns these facts by actually performing the operations with concrete materials.
When the child wants to do arithmetic, he is given a sheet of paper containing simple problems. He works the problems with appropriate materials and records his results. Similar operations can be performed with a variety of materials. These variety maintains the child interest while giving him many opportunities for necessary repetition. As he commits the addition facts and the multiplications tables to memory, he gains a real understanding of what each operation means. They are many materials that can be used for numeration, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Language
A young child is amazed by oral language and stories with expression. He always enjoys repeating vocabulary words. He works with many different pictures cards and books to establish his vocabulary. He is also encouraged do express his feelings.
In the Montessori classroom, a child learns the phonetic sounds of the letters before he learns the alphabetical names in a sequence. the phonetic sounds are given first because these are the sounds he hears in words that he need to be able to read. The child first becomes aware of these phonetic sounds when the teacher introduces the consonants with sandpaper letters.
The individual presentation of language materials in a Montessori classroom allows the teacher to take the advantage of each child’s greatest periods of interest. Reading instructions begins on the day when the child wants to know what a word says or when he shows an interest in using the movable letters –nearly always precedes reading in a Montessori environment. By doping many reading exercise which offer variety rather than monotonous repettion ,gradually the child learns irregular words, and words with two and three syllables. Also available in the Montessori classroom are many attractive books which use a large number of phonetic words. Proceeding at their own pace, the child is encouraged to read about things which interest him. His skills in phonics give him the means of attacking almost any news word, so that he is not limited to specific number of words which he has been trained to recognize by sight.
The child’s interest in reading is never stifled by monotony. Rather, it is cultivated as his most important hey to future learning. He is encouraged to explore books for answers to his own questions.
Geography
The large wooden maps are among the most popular activities in the classroom. At first the child uses the maps simply as puzzles. Gradually he learns the names of many of the countries as well as information about culture, climate, and landmarks. The maps illustrate many geographical facts concretely. The child also learns about common land and water formations such as islands, peninsulas, isthmus, gulfs and straits.
Science & Nature
In the science the child’s natural curiosity is stimulated through discovery projects and experiments, which enables the child draw his own conclusions. The plant and animal kingdoms re studied in an orderly fashion to foster a love and appreciation for all living things.
Cultural Exercises
All children go through periods of keen sensitivity to language, mathematics, geography, music, etc. Their interest in learning is natural and intense. Since materials and guidance are always at hand, the child can work at a particular interest and satisfy his/her need to know more and more. By the end of three years, stimulated by the activities of the other children and the guidance of the teacher, his/her interests have usually widened into many areas.
